


The Green Dress

by NotManTheLessButNatureMore



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Friendship, References to Illness, nothing happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 01:47:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30081606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotManTheLessButNatureMore/pseuds/NotManTheLessButNatureMore
Summary: **Disclaimer: this is a reupload - see author’s note**The green never left him during all that time.
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	The Green Dress

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! So this is a reupload of a fic I wrote aaaaages ago for a secret santa (I think?) in 2019 (I think?) but I chickened out and deleted it before authors were revealed 😬 which is probably breaking some sort of a03 etiquette 😬 Sorry! But I quickly lost confidence in it/thought it was terrible. And a bit vaguer/confusing than my usual stuff (which is saying something). So it went in the bin. But I found it in my notes and thought maybe I’d just upload it again ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> (but if it is still terrible then feel free to chase it though the town with pitchforks and I’ll deleted it)

Closing his hands he can call to memory the feel of silk rushing like water through his fingers. The green of the blanket pulled half across him can glint in the light in ways it shouldn’t if he allows his eyes to fall half shut. Reaching out during the night, when she finally falls asleep, he can imagine the smooth skin of her legs covered in that shimmering green, can imagine her face as she pulled it from the box, can imagine his heart leap the way it did the first time she wore it for him, only for him.

Green.

He thinks of the dark green jumper she wore the day they moved in together, the feel of it under his hands as they stood holding each other and looking at their new view across the city. 

Months ago, staring long enough at the bag of fluid hanging above his bed he imagined a green tinge to it. Imagined it flowing down and into his veins, imagined that it was a part of her, part of her life mixing with his and willing him on. 

The green never left him during all that time. 

The worst day came by surprise. The rain had lashed Cornwall for a full week but the rewards were lush green growth as far as the eyes could see. The trees seemed to have doubled in width and the grass had risen in height. He’d been parked by the back porch, aunt Joan telling Robin all her baking secrets at the kitchen table, and he watched Nick arrive back from his run covered in mud. The rush of cold air that Nick brought in with him made Joan shiver but settled as a heavy clod in Cormoran’s chest when the heat in his cheeks didn’t abate. 

From there he remembers nodding his head as Robin told Joan about party preparations, he remembers smiling when Nick cracked jokes about Ilsa’s organisational skills. He remembers Ted’s frown as he shuffled in from the shop and he remembers Nick’s face falling.

He’s blind then, arms are pulling him tightly and one word is whispered over and over again. He knows which room they’ve taken him to, knows the distant tapping sound is the deep green leaves knocking against the window, but the burst of white static has dazzled him and forms a wall between his mind and what’s in front of him. Sounds and touches cascade around him and he falls underwater.

Hands are always on him. On his knee as Ilsa talks quietly, on his cheek and smoothing his hair as Joan hums softly. Robin’s touch, one he knows better than his own, seems to cover him completely until deep in the dead of night he recognises the voice of his mother and her hand rubbing his back. Leda’s words whisper him to sleep.

_I miss you darling._

Then all comfort is pulled away from him and Nick and Ted are arguing while Robin whispers love into his ear. He can’t see Ilsa and Joan and something about that worries him but then he is between Ted and Nick and being pulled like a dead weight into his uncle’s battered car. His final thought is of the trip he and Lucy took as children through Devonshire with Joan and Ted early one summer day, the rising sun setting fire to the open fields. This memory plays over and over in his mind for days. Every wide open field seems to promise something more and every swaying tree with an armful of green leaves seems to roll back and forth, calling him closer. He imagines the dog on the front cover of the book in his lap turning into a cat and the hand resting on his dark blue shorts seems full of a cold, silky fabric.

The green dress.

Somehow Ilsa has worked magic and returned it to Robin with a little extra room for the pound or two of weight that age brings. When she puts it on she is twenty five again and then thirty and thirty four. Cormoran is shell shocked and then deeply in love and then the most nervous he’s ever been, even with Nick by his side.

Nick is still by his side now, won’t move from it in fact and Strike has paid Jack off just to distract him later. Robin is dancing, laughing, smiling and setting his heart alight where he sits while Vanessa returns with cocktails that Lucy eyes warily and Ilsa grabs without missing a beat.

Every few minutes Robin catches his eye and smiles. He knows that under the guise of a smile thrown to her lover she’s reassuring herself that he‘s okay, that all of his improvements won’t unravel tonight when, to him at least, it matters the most.

She looks beautiful and light and in every dark corner of his memory he can now find Robin. Wherever he can imagine a waterfall of silk in his hands or a green open field promising peace he can find love. He can find Robin. And he can find his way back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
